In some cases, access to medical care for certain specialties such as, for example, psychological care may not be widely available particularly in rural areas or even urban areas that are significantly spread out. In other cases, care may be available, but the cost of providing individualized care may be prohibitive to patients and/or insurance programs.
Remote care systems have been proposed in which a doctor or other medical practitioner may provide some level of care from a location remote to the patient. In prior art systems, however, the doctor/patient interaction facilitated by the systems may be less than optimal. Remote care systems should allow the patient to experience interaction with the doctor that is as similar as possible to the interaction that the patient would have experienced if the patient and the doctor were in the same room. Conventional remote care systems do not provide that.
Moreover, because of their construction, weight, power structure, etc., prior art remote care systems were effectively bound to a single medical facility and were not effectively and easily transported from one facility to another facility. The cost of remote care systems that are effectively bound to a single medical facility may be prohibitive because multiple systems would be needed to service multiple facilities, which increases costs and reduces availability of care.